Essential Oils

Not much time tonight, need to get some rest. Spent much of the day at Nicholas' essential oils program. The various oils they produce are used in perfumes, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. His program employs widows and orphans and invest dividends back into the community. Nicholas started the program with a grant and works with 100 farmers. He was approved last summer for a $500,000 USAID grant to expand the program to 2000 farmers, but bureaucracy is so far keeping the money in limbo.

Rwanda is lacking in any major exportable goods. With a knowledge economy 15 years off (once the current crop of kids graduate and get through university), the country needs a sustainable, profitable model to help people make a decent living. Nicholas model is so far working very well with the soil types and climate of Rwanda. Hopefully it will be able to be employed around the country and help Rwanda have some influence in the essential oils markets.


What's unique about Nicholas' project, besides sustainability and community investment, is the quality. It's all organic farming, which produces the highest quality oils, and creates a premium on the market making it quite lucrative. It's an interesting example of Rwandan taking local knowledge and applying it to the global economy.

Still waiting on Gacaca approval... hoping we will be given our documents tomorrow AM so we can film a court-in-progress tomorrow afternoon. This is a short but really important piece of footage for us. We're also still in limbo on the helicopter flight, which would add some great scenics to the doc.

Some shots of Jim & I shooting, and Richard & Nicholas (perpetually) on the horn